All-year Schools Catch On 12-month Schedule Could Be For Orange

Year-round schools, often viewed as a last resort for relieving crowded classrooms, are gaining respect in education circles.

About 70 school districts in 16 states, including Florida, hold classes throughout the year as an alternative to the traditional nine-month school year.

The idea has some support in Orange County, where school board member Dee Parsons and the Orange County Classroom Teachers Association have called for studies. More discussions are expected in coming weeks.

In year-round systems, school is always in session, but students and teachers get as much vacation as under the traditional schedule. Instead of a long summer vacation, shorter breaks are staggered throughout the year. At any time a large percentage of students and teachers are vacationing.

Orange and Seminole counties both considered 12-month schedules several years ago but rejected them. But with more rapid growth now, the time may be right, Parsons said.

The full-time use of school buildings and resources has enormous potential benefits, both in educating children and thrifty use of tax dollars, he said. ''It might not work at all. If it doesn't work, what have we got? More portables, new schools and higher taxes,'' Parsons said.

''I just do not know how this system can continue to pay $60,000 per acre, then build a $24.4 million high school and staff and occupy it for only three-quarters of a year,'' he said.

There is skepticism among the other board members, but they agree that the year-round school may be worth examining.

''If you can show me it will save money, I'll go along with it as long as it doesn't hurt us academically,'' said board member Bill Frangus.

The longer school year is a logical step in the education reforms that have swept America in the past two years, say Denis Doyle of the American Enterprise Institute and professor Chester Finn of the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies.

Writing in The Washington Post, they said the longer school year raised the prospect of higher pay for teachers, better use of school buildings, more class time for slow learners or gifted children and a simplification of child- care problems that working parents experience each summer.

The traditional schedule is entrenched in Florida, but a few school districts have experimented with the year-round concept, including Palm Beach, Pasco, Hernando and Dade. In Palm Beach County, Jupiter schools still use the 12-month schedule for exceptional education, alternative education and vocational classes.

Districts with crowded classrooms sometimes turn to year-round schools as an emergency measure, only to find they prefer it, said said Tom Balakas, president of the National Council on Year-Round Education.

Balakas is an elementary school principal in Cherry Creek, Colo., a suburb of Denver, and was a teacher there in 1969 when the district was struggling with crowding in elementary schools.

Cherry Creek officials separated students into four groups, each on a schedule of 45 days in school followed by 15 days out. Attendance of the groups was staggered so that 25 percent of students always were out of school. More than a decade later, Cherry Creek officials say their 45-15 system gave students and teachers more frequent vacations and cut absenteeism -- all without reducing student achievement.

One of the biggest advantages to year-round schools, Balakas said, is that fewer schools have to be built. For every four needed under the traditional system, the 12-month calendar requires only three. Elementary schools cost about $4 million each.

After switching to year-round classes, Cherry Creek consolidated two schools and closed others.

But there are problems, Balakas concedes:

-- Having so many students and teachers always on vacations complicates communications.

-- Vacations also can make classroom schedules nearly unmanageable for some teachers.

-- Building maintenance must be done whenever possible -- holidays, nights, weekends and during the school day. Also equipment wears out faster.

-- It costs more to train teachers and staff. Also, there may be a larger air-conditioning bill.

-- Teachers may not be paid more because they teach the same number of days -- 180 -- as under the traditional schedule.

Persuading the public to give up the old schedule, a throwback to when families needed help on the farm, can be the greatest problem of all.

''We have long since become an urban and suburban society and it's really not necessary to be underutilizing our schools the way we are,'' said Joseph Orr, a Jupiter school official and a board member of the National Council on Year-Round Education.

''But try selling that to the parents of this community.''

There are several variations of the year-round school calendar, including quarters, quinmesters and variations of the 45-15.

In a quarter system, students would be required to attend school three quarters and could attend the fourth.